Saturday, May 14, 2005

Well?

It is quiet around here, as another journaler has noted. So, some questions. If you feel like a week-end chat, post the questions and your answers in your journal and leave a link.1. Do you know your next door neighbors?2. Does your family have any interesting plans for summer?3. When was the last time you saw your in-laws?4. What is the first thing that you have to do at work on Monday morning?5. What would I see if I were to walk up to your front door this week-end?

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1. Our neighbors to the west have been here since we moved in 21 years ago. Our combined seven children played together all the time for many,, many seasons. Now among us we have a financial services professional, a married daughter in Germany, a recent graduate back from Germany and looking for work, three in college and one headed that way. The couple to the east moved in few years after we did and eventually produced a darling child who is still in elementary school. We began our acquaintance with a huge squabble over an encroaching fence (ours), but I think we have all nonetheless turned out to be good neighbors to each other.

2. We have been humbled by four different school schedules. The older children have interesting plans -- Spain for one and architectural design classes for the other -- but the rest of us are lagging in the planning department.

3. I think it's been nearly a year! The kids went with their dad to see his family at Christmas, but my extremely limited vacation time and my ill stepmother's needs combined to keep me in-state.

4. Ahhh. I am the yearbook advisor and we are in a state of crisis. The first thing that I have to do is log on to the yearbook website and see whether there is any hope of a yearbook arrival before graduation.

5. You would see an unraveled hose, decrepit daffofils, and. . . Ta Da: (In my old journal, a photograph of a white tulip, gently unfolding).

Why Gannet? Why Search the Sea?

Gannets are enormous and sleek creamy-white seabirds, with black wingtips, yellow heads and necks, and startlingly outlined eyes. They nest on the rocky cliffs of the European and North American coasts of the North Atlantic and, once grown, spend their days sailing across the ocean. The acrobatics by which they make their living ~ steep climbs into the air and speedy plunges straight into the sea ~ are rivaled only by those of pelicans.
What better metaphor for a sweeping search of one's life choices and opportunities than a gannet extended above the waves, a regal and yet restless surveyor of the vast ocean surface? The gannet reminds us that life is an adventure in both beauty and profound unease, and that the sea itself is limitless in its textures and possibilities.